Ozma's Musings on Love
by Charlemagne
Summary: The Princess of Oz comtemplates love as the ruler of a fairy kingdom


Ozma's Musings on Love  
  
Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing in Oz since the current ruler has rather plainly told me that she owns everything in Oz. I do however owe L. Frank Baum whose work has passed into the public domain a great debt for introducing me to Lady Ozma and am very pleased to be able to chronicle below one of the events of her life in an "adventure" very personal to her and myself writing it. Please note for those who disbelieve in Oz....well ppppphhpt is my main comment...and for those who disbelieve in what occurs below look at the latest book "Paradox in Oz" which shows at least one Ozma had this sort of an encounter and it twis was as official as official can be, when not being official.  
  
Ozma the Queen of Oz was the most beautiful, caring, intelligent, passionate, wondrous, loving, and curiously lonely woman in the Fairy Lands. As the shimmering goddess took a moment to stare out her window at the Emerald City that was her home, she mused on exactly why this was the case. It was a cool summer's night outside with just the beginnings of bedtime starting to settle in on the people of Oz. Her palace chambers were completely silent and it was very conductive to a woman thinking about herself and loneliness.  
  
  
'I have no lack of friends....the Hungry Tiger, Jack Pumpkinhead, The Cowardly Lion, Dear Dear Dorothy, the Sawhorse, the Scarecrow, my mentor Glinda, and so many other wonderful personages. Yet I find myself still feeling a great hole in my heart for someone else that does not exist in my life.' Ozma thought as she looked down on the teeming citizens of the wonderful city, all dressed in green. Her eyes caught a glimpse of a couple in distress. They were lifting up their child who had accidentally broken his toy emerald cat creature was very irritated it seemed by it.  
  
  
'I am not a fool. I know what this hollowness is within my heart and I can give it a name here and now: I am lonely for Love.' Ozma thought the word with some trace of embarrassment and more than a little mischievousness in her eyes. The citizens of Oz had long been divided on her marrying or falling in love. All it seemed, wanted her to marry no one, while each secretly either wanted to marry her or had a friend they thought it would be grand for her to marry. It would be well and grand if Ozma and her people had all agreed on this friend and personage for her to love but since all had a different one in mind they came to the consensus it was better to keep the position open forever.  
  
  
'And now I have vowed never to marry and love and it seems sometimes that it is the best course of action...and yet other times, it seems, such words ring as hollow and horrible as the vow it is.' Ozma thought, it had been an order of the kingdom that she should not take a consort because it prevented so many young Winkies, Munchkins, Quadlings, even Flying Monkeys and Nomes from comming to the Palace to court her yet it was a violation of the highest order in Oz for anyone to be unhappy.  
  
  
"And I am unhappy." Ozma twirled around in her her room sadly before plopping herself on her bed.   
  
  
Ozma could remember one time when such thoughts of marriage were realistic, and she had hoped that she might find some kind of true love at last. However, the wisdom of the faeries precluded such, so the thoughts she had to rely on belonged to a being both distant and closest to Ozma's heart: her prior self, Tip. Tip had lived long enough as a boy to dream of escaping  
Mombi and marrying some Ozian lady even then, but Tip had been a simple boy of low education, ambition, and good heart. Ozma faced many more difficulties as Queen. In a way she missed Tip and wished he could be here, though he'd make a poor husband for a princess, Ozma thought, he would have gotten along with Dorothy and perhaps would have found love there.  
  
  
"Hahahaha." Ozma let her tinkling laughter ring like a bell as she realized how absurd her fancy had become. In lieu of imagining the perfect husband she had decided to play matchmaker with her best friend and a boy who had never actually existed. Rising to comb her hair this evening, Ozma pulled out her magical silver combs with their emerald teeth to begin the one thousand strokes her hair required. It was tedious work but a Queen had to look stately. Strangely people accepted that 'I have to comb my hair a thousand times' better as an excuse not to attend matters of state than "I need time to think". Ozma wondered if Dorothy, who was now nearly one hundred to Ozma's one thousand, but still was a young girl had similar thoughts about marriage and resolved to ask her about it sometime.  
  
  
"Perhaps I am too old." Ozma said looking into her mirror. No one in Oz aged unless they desired to do so and while some men seventy five looked the way men from Dorothy's world looked at that age, all stooped over and hobbled to look "respectable", other more sane men chose to live thousands of years never a day over ten to twenty. Ozma herself chose to live for the most part at the age of fifteen, the final year before a person cast away all vestiges of childlike innocence to begin the transformation to adulthood. However good a perspective this gave Ozma on life, her body still had entered womanhood and she often dreamed of completing the transformation. An Ozma of eighteen or twenty would certainly be the most lovely creature men had ever known and desired, the reason Ozma never considered it for long. If she had a true love she would certainly not mind growing older to be his wife in form and soul as only an adult could be, but she had no desire to break men's hearts as other faeries seemed to take pleasure in doing in less pleasant lands. The thought of growing younger had it's own appeal to that she might cast away such adult thoughts but Ozma enjoyed them enough that it was as repellant as the other.  
  
  
"Glinda, I wonder if you ever loved or married." Ozma thought as she continued her strokes and reached a hundred combs. The Good Witch of the South was certainly a woman and a very beautiful one at that yet, all men of Oz had learned that she had no interest in seeking one as a spouse. Whether it was because they were beneath her notice, or it was as Ozma suspected, and Glinda already had a sweetheart, or perhaps one she had lost long ago and still mourned the result was the same and Glinda had no visible lovers. It had been a sensible precaution for Glinda to have only girls in her palace, truly, because in either case she would certainly have any male servants fall instantly in love with her. While the thought was amusing, it would also be very troublesome. If Glinda wanted her bath water drawn or slippers fetched, it would be difficult to get such things done with the men fighting amongst themselves, or ignoring their duties to write poems, pick flowers (which was Ozma thought was just horrid), and other things Ozma had learned were part of the silliness men engaged in to show they cared, rather than simply say it. It was better that Glinda did not have such trouble as Ozma would have to emanate should she ever become an adult.   
  
  
"I suppose, Lady Glinda, if you ever needed a lover he would have to be the most powerful magician in the world as well...or a complete humbug." Ozma smiled weakly as she reached two hundred brushes. Her reflection was very silent tonight as she was doing her own hair but Ozma trusted her with all of her secrets and she occasionally confided some of her own to Ozma.  
It was another problem of Ozma's that though she might love a man, if she married any man he would have to be her equal or the lowest of the low. The former would be troubling indeed as Ozma was quite certain that such a man who was possessed of her age, beauty, wisdom, great magic, strength in spirit, and nobility should not be shackled to merely being the consort of a  
woman who rules her kingdom. Such a man would grow quickly bored with play and paradise and seek out great adventures and kingdoms of his own to rule. That would make Ozma very lonely, as they would be apart most of the time. It was not a difficult thing to imagine that she might share ruler-ship with her husband but Ozma knew her people best, and she had no desire to abandon half of her own day to someone else. Besides, even if he did rule as well, that would still only leave Ozma very bored while he ruled, and him bored while she ruled.  
  
  
"What about the complete humbug?" Ozma's reflection asked as Ozma reached three hundred and thirty three strokes.  
  
  
The idea had seemed at first ridiculous to Ozma, that she might marry the lowest of the low but the ruler of Oz was not ashamed that she was a magnet to misfits. Those who were ruled by their flaws, be they a conscience when fat babies beckon, courage only when it is needed, or a head which is in constant need of replacing due to spoilage, were always near  
Ozma's heart, because it was from these troubles they became great. Glinda was closest to Ozma because she was the greatest in the land. Dorothy was closest because she was so perfectly ordinary. A person who saw the Queen of the magical land as a person first, then her title, was a rare commodity and one both frightening and wonderful.  
  
  
"Yes I could marry someone like that...if they could juggle." Ozma smirked as she reached eight hundred and fifty three. It was a mean thing to smirk in Oz, it sometimes seemed, because a smirk was a secret smile of triumph. Ozma, after stopping, so, wondered if her smirk hadn't caused some terrible calamity in Oz. Everything she did seemed to so perfectly reflect something  
wonderful usually, but that was when she did something good. The Queen dearly hoped the reverse was not true but having rarely, if ever, done something wrong it was difficult to tell. In any case she didn't mean that juggling of objects would be a requirement of her love, though it would certainly be nice if he could, she meant that he could juggle respect for her and adulation.  
  
  
"I had best check the Magic Picture to see if something in Oz has been effected by my smirk." Ozma resolved as she put her comb down at nine hundred ninety nine. The Queen's reflection finished her own combing then reached through the window and stroked Ozma's hair from behind while the ruler of Oz got up.  
  
  
"Thank you." Ozma looked back at her reflection. The mirror Ozma then nodded sagely and said, "You're welcome."  
  
  
Ozma checked the land of Oz for inhabitants who were troubled and saw that a poor Fox had been beaten quite painfully by some of Bellina's chickens, a Munchkin's dinner had burned, and the emerald cat who had been broken was having difficulty finding glue and a competent craftsmen to put him back together. Ozma had no idea which of these events, if any, had been caused by her smirking, but resolved to make up for it by inviting all of them to the palace for the royal treatment tomorrow to make up for it.  
  
It was then a thought hit her, and she turned to the Magic Picture as she said a single sentence: "Show me my soul-mate and true love." Ozma blinked, waiting for the response. She smiled whimsically as the magic picture showed the doorways to her room with the words OZ imprinted upon them in beautiful shining gold letters. Fate had revealed itself that she would always be in love with her kingdom, and that was what her destiny would be from this day forward. Ozma proceeded to her doorway and pulled it open before shutting her eyes and heading out. It was a melancholy moment and one that required the utmost dignity.  
  
"Farewell my dream.....OOooph!" Ozma said as she suddenly tripped head over heads and landed on her posterior. Looking backwards, after checking to see if she was still regal (she was), Ozma tried to see at what had tripped her and found her self gazing upon a young man who was leaning over just nearly out of sight of the Magic Picture.   
  
"Oh pardon me madam....errr....are you Princess Ozma? I was leaning over to pick up an Emerald which had fallen off your door. I was told to speak with you about...some things." the man said in a bit of a shy voice to her. Ozma grinned, which was entirely different than a smirk, but had the same connotations without the possible disaster.  
  
"Yes, I am indeed sir." Ozma rose to her destiny.  
  
The End...for now  
  
Charles Phipps  
  
Royal Historian of Oz  
  
Please send comments as always whether to what list you find this on or to mine e-mail address at tcp@zoomnet.net mailto:tcp@zoomnet.net where I am taking comments on how to improve my skills as a historian.  
The story continues in "The Wooing of Ozma" aka "The Umbrella man of Oz" for those who are interested in discovering just who the mysterious man to be for Ozma is. 


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